There wasn’t.
Another day, more delays and distractions, not that she would qualify Patrick Connolly’s murder as a distraction, but it had taken her team off her father’s case yet again.
“Hey,” Captain Malone said as he stepped into the conference room and closed the door. “What happened on 12th?”
Sam filled him in on the details she knew thus far.
He shook his head in disbelief. “Just when I think I’ve heard everything.”
“By all accounts, a really good guy. Newly married.”
Malone grimaced. “Taken out by a scumbag who probably should’ve been locked up years ago.”
“Probably.” Sam glanced at the murder board and then at the captain. “Anything new?”
“We found proof that your guy Davis called Conklin every year on the anniversary of the shooting.”
Sam grasped one of the chairs for support. “I don’t understand this.”
“Neither do we. The chief has an appointment with Tom Forrester tomorrow morning.”
“I feel sick.”
“I know that feeling.”
Sam sat because she wasn’t sure she could remain standing. “He was my dad’s friend. Was it all a big lie?”
“I don’t know, but we’re going to find out.”
She thought of the evidence locker that needed to be searched for her dad’s messenger bag. “Faith said something that reminded me of the leather messenger bag that he carried back and forth to work every day. I hadn’t thought of that bag in years, since before the shooting. I can’t find it at the house. I was going to search the evidence locker for it.”
“Want some help?”
“You remember the bag?”
“The man purse?” He smiled. “Of course I do.”
“Why didn’t I ever think to ask what’d become of it before now?”
“Sam, come on... Give yourself a break. Don’t you remember what those first weeks were like?”
“Not really. It’s kind of a blur.” She remembered fear and heartache and stress over the problems she’d encountered with Peter and Stahl at that time, neither of whom had had an ounce of empathy after the trauma of her father’s shooting. When Peter accused her of spending too much time with her recently paralyzed father, that was when she’d moved out of the home she’d shared with him and back into her childhood home to help care for her father. She’d stayed there until right before she married Nick.
“I remember every chilling, horrifying, agonizing detail, and the last thing on any of our minds was what had become of the man purse.” Malone opened the door. “Let’s go take a look.”
Sam got up to follow him, but they were waylaid by the arrival of FBI Special Agent in Charge Avery Hill, who was visibly rattled.
“Is it true? Pat Connolly was killed?”
“Yes,” Sam said. “By a stray bullet fired by a career criminal arguing with another man over a woman across the street.”
Hill exhaled and bent at the waist, hands on his knees. “Oh my God.”
“You knew him?”
Without looking up, Hill nodded. “He interned with me out of grad school. I helped him get the job at the DEA. He was brilliant. One of the best up-and-coming federal agents I ever worked with. He was going to do big things.”
Lieutenant Archelotta came into the pit, looking pale and shocked. “Pat Connolly was murdered?”
“You knew him too?” Sam asked.
“Yeah. He was in IT at the DEA. We worked together several times, and I knew him also through an IT association for LEOs.” He used the acronym for law enforcement officers. “He was...”
“Brilliant,” Avery said again.
“Indeed,” Archie said. “I can’t believe it. And he just got married.”
“His wife was here,” Sam said. “It was dreadful.”
Archie groaned. “Ugh.”
They were still standing there when Freddie, Cameron and Jeannie came into the pit, looking tired and spent.
“The shooter is in Booking,” Freddie said.
“Thanks for a great job, all of you,” Sam said.
“We had some good help from people who saw it go down,” Cameron said.
“We’ll need to make a statement to the press,” Malone said to Sam. “Can you do that and then I’ll meet you in the locker?”
“Yeah, okay.” She conferred with Freddie, wrote down the pertinent info and scanned the rap sheet that Jeannie printed out, detailing the lengthy criminal record of the man charged with shooting Connolly. “What the hell was this guy still doing on the streets?”
“That’s a very good question.” Cameron sounded frustrated. “And now an innocent guy is dead. It’s so fucking wrong.”
Sam had never heard the überprofessional Green drop an f-bomb. “Yes, it is, but at least we got swift justice for his family.”
“Cold comfort,” Freddie said.
“Let’s call it a day here and pick up my dad’s case in the morning.” Sam had a feeling she wouldn’t get much out of them at this point in the day. “Thanks for your good work on behalf of Agent Connolly.” While they prepared to leave, she headed for the lobby to make a statement to the press. When they saw her coming, they snapped to attention. Before they could begin shouting questions at her, Sam stepped up to the podium.
“At just after two thirty eastern time today, thirty-one-year-old Drug Enforcement Administration Agent Patrick Connolly was killed instantly by a bullet discharged from a weapon fired during an altercation between two men. Agent Connolly, who was on the sidewalk across the street, was shot in the chest. James Zander, who is well-known to the MPD and has a lengthy record, was arrested a short time later by Homicide detectives who credit eyewitnesses for assisting in the speedy resolution of this case. Mr. Zander will be charged with one count of felony murder, and I expect that additional gun charges will be filed by the U.S. Attorney. Agent Connolly was newly married and leaves his wife, Veronica. He was described by colleagues as brilliant in the area of information technology as it pertains to criminal investigations. That’s all I have at this time.”
She ignored their shouted questions as she turned to go back inside to meet Malone in the evidence locker, where he was already working.
“This is everything from that December.” He gestured to a shelf in the vast storage area where he’d removed several boxes and plastic tubs from the shelf. “How’d the statement go?”
“Fine.”
“Another tough one, huh?”
“They’re all tough, but some are worse than others, such as the well-respected and newly married DEA agent who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“You want to pick this up tomorrow?”
“No, I’d like to get it done.”
They spent two hours going through every piece of evidence collected during the month of her father’s shooting, as well as the items from the month after, but there was no sign of the bag. “Where would it be?” Sam wanted to punch something.
“Tomorrow, you should interview the first responders who were on the scene. One of them might remember seeing it.”
“We’ll start there. Thanks for the help in here.”
They put the room back to rights before heading out. When she was in the car, Sam placed a call to Nick, who answered on the second ring.
“Hey, babe.”
The sound of his voice filled her with relief. “Are you still at work?”
“Yep. You?”
“Just leaving. Are you heading home anytime soon?”
“Not quite yet.” He sounded tired and stressed.
“You mind if I stop by?”
“Is that a rhetorical question?”
Sam smiled. He was so damned sweet. “I don’t want to interrupt world domination or anything.”
“Please come and interrupt me. I just got out of a budget meeting that made my head hurt and gave me heartburn. No end in sight for this continuing resolution that’s running the government at the moment.”
“I don’t know what that means, and I don’t want to know, but I’m sorry about the headache and the heartburn. I’m on my way.”
“I’ll be here.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
SAM LEFT HQ and directed the car through rush-hour traffic as she made her way to Pennsylvania Avenue to go to her husband’s office at the White House. And yes, that sentence still made her want to giggle madly nearly a year after he’d accepted the president’s invitation to be his new vice president. They’d had no idea then the many changes his new role would bring to their lives, primarily the security that surrounded Nick and Scotty at all times.
That had been quite an adjustment, to say the least, not to mention that it took thirty minutes for Nick to leave the house. He hated that, and so did she. They both missed the ability to be spontaneous, to come and go as they pleased, to operate in the anonymity people took for granted until they lost it forever.
At the White House gate, she was waved through. After all, she was the second lady—another thought that still made her laugh. She was probably the worst second lady in history, but she was also considered a trendsetter for continuing in her job, without Secret Service protection, while her husband was in office.
Coming here was almost routine at this point. Underline the word almost. It would always be surreal to swing by the White House to see her husband during his workday. She even had her own parking space. Hilarious. Inside the West Wing, she made her way to Nick’s office, nodding at people who recognized her and said, “Hello, Mrs. Cappuano,” as she went by. Here, she was Mrs. Cappuano, and that was fine with her when not that long ago she would’ve chafed at being Mrs. Anything. She’d never changed her name after she married Peter, a topic that had caused conflict between them, but then again, everything had caused conflict between them.